Publisher video: HealthNewsReview.org’s first five years (1st of 5-part video series)

This week I’m attending the summer meeting of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making’s medical editors in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (If you’re interested, you can follow the live tweeting thread at hashtag #sdmjh11.) The Foundation has been the sole sponsor of my HealthNewsReview.org project for the past 5+ years.

Since I’m on the road, I’m publishing a series of video clips from a taping done by the hosts of the NIH Medicine in the Media conference two weeks ago at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.

Part 1, below, is a brief summary of what we’ve found after 5 years of reviewing stories that make claims about treatments, tests, products and procedures.

In Part 2, on Tuesday, I’ll discuss my optimism for the future of health care journalism, despite some of the troublesome findings reported in Part 1 above.

In Part 3, on Wednesday, I’ll remind journalists of the help that’s available to them in most communities to evaluate evidence and to scrutinize claims.

In Part 4, on Thursday, I’ll explain why stories about “new stuff” in health care are really health care reform stories, even if they’re not framed that way, and how communication of benefits/harms of new interventions is a major health policy issue.

In the final clip, Part 5 on Friday, I’ll give some advice to readers, viewers, consumers, physicians, researchers – anyone who is upset about health care news coverage that is biased, imbalanced or incomplete.